>>26065096>>26065062Well I can try to take over and run it, but it'll be my first Civ thread I ever ran after only following a small handful of such. And I'd have to leave for a little bit in 30-60 minutes then come back. I'm also heading on a vacation come saturday that will probably make this thread not run for a week or so

Umhar the priest had been dead for quite a while when his grave stirred in the middle of the quiet woods. Now, he was no longer Umhar the Priest, now he was Umhar the Necromancer, and quite undead. Emerging from the stone prison that was his tomb, he looked around. Once, when he was alive, the cemetary was on the edge of a village. Apparently not anymore, and it looked like the village had been gone for a long time. Long enough for the woods to grow to and almost overgrow the cemetary, which was good because it messed a bit with the whole hallowed ground thing. Most of it was still untouchable, but a few of the bodies around the outskirts of the graveyard weren't protected anymore. Time to get to work.

>>26065333Explore: Even if this has been a long time there will still be a FRACTION of a road leading out of here we need to find it. Our objective is not to leave but to find out where civilization could possibly be.

You poke around a bit around the graveyard and Umhar realizes that being dead for however many years wasn't nice to his memory as he can't recall in what direction the road used to be. He does manage to find a patch of old, cracked cobblestone leading east though, so that'd be a good bet. The search also turns up the carcass of a dead deer that could be reanimated. No shelter is forthcoming though, so Umhar will have to settle for using his tomb for now.

Options: (choose 1 for now, since basics can't do shit unsupervised)> Reanimate corpses (choose spell when you get more than one)> scavenge> explore: N/E/S/W> study magic> research and development> write in

>>26065499R&D Im thinking using the blood from the deer to do a blood ritual of some sort to bring power to the Umhars body. I believe blood rituals are unholy enough to start to lower the hallow in the vicinity.

Thinking of starting small. Once we bring bodies back from the dead it will be alot harder to hide the fact that we exist from anything.

The deer is well too long dead to be useful in blood magic, but messing around with it for a while Umhar figures out how to do a simple corpse divination. The spell provides no real control over what he will see aside from choosing who/what the vision will be relevant to though

>>26065662Scavenge: Lets see if we can find any daggers or Athame. We need to equip ourselves with something so we can get some blood. Our hands will not help us gut a forest creature and im pretty sure that you cant use undead blood in a ritual so no killing something with zombie magic then using its blood...

Replying from phone because I'm in the middle of the afk period I mentioned

You scavenger in a generally southern direction and find that while no trace of the old village remains aboveground two basements and the Well are discovered. The basements contain a lot of ruined stuff as Well as 4 woodsman axes, 8 rat corpses and a patch of mold that you recognise as a common spell component. The Well holds a pile of mixed bones of the people who fell into it over the years. With a bit of work they could probably be assembled/separated/sorted into something useful

Umhar researches on the dead rats for the day, and thus doesn't have time to also direct the skeletons in clearing out a basement. By the end of the end of the day, he's managed to develop a ritual that uses a dead body to improve a basic undead with weak mental faculties. Nothing in the way of self-awareness, but able to obey slightly more complex or long-term command (in other words, they don't need a sentient overseer)

>>26066320>>26066296 Umhar supervises the skeletons while they clear out the basements. The first one is in a decent enough condition to be useable, but unfurnished for now. The other one isn't useable, but clearing out the junk and dirt reveals a stone covering that could be an opening deeper down.

The rat is set to scavenging on its own, as it is autonomous. It doesn't find anything of note, as between being alone and being small, it isn't overly efficient at it.

>>26066440The stone covering opens into a second room, this one kept in good shape. It's a shrine with an icon depicting a reptilian skull carved into stone set above a stone altar, or sarcophagus, or both. A pair of scythes are placed in each corner of the room. In a flash of memory of your past life, you recall that this was the place where the house everyone thought haunted was located.

Choices> Worship. This is clearly dedicated to a deity that has to do with death, so being on his good side is probably a good thing.> open the sarcophagus-altar-thing. Whatever is inside is bound to be useful.> write in> leave the place alone for now and decide later.

>>26066595Scythes are a tough weapon to actually use so only to the unequipped skeletons. Hmm if everyone else wants to worship at an unknown alter then fine i guess. I'm only a little worried about the deity being pissed if we don't aline with it's doctrines.

As you worship the deity that this place is dedicated to, a name rings out in your mind: Artak. You sense that he grants you his favor, allowing your spells and rituals greater potency when cast in his shrine.

>>26066710I think we should try a blood sacrifice at the alter of Artak and ask him if he/she knows a way to defile the graveyard. Send the skeletons out to hunt something and bring it back, hopefully alive.

I really feel like we are just floundering around looking for a lead here.

You start uncovering what village you can while the rat goes looking for something to sacrifice. Uncovering the village yields you a second basement, this one is the butcher's storage. The salted meat isn't really interesting, but a few of the deer have been salted whole save for the skin and removing the flesh from some of the other pieces yield bones that might be assembled to something useful.

The rat chances upon a hut out in the woods that looks like it has been inhabited recently!

>>26066821>Sorry, my drawing and MS paint skills are off the charts, the lower end of them, so that's not going to happen as it will be utterly useless more likely than not.Just go on a map generator like here:http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/world/and make a random map. Then reveal parts of it as we explore.

You don't have to, but it does make the game more "immersive" so to speak.

>>26066965Yup sounds good. We need to find a young lamb for sacrifice btw. They were the most common in most religions and even if it is an evil god I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be pissed off by such a pure sacrifice.

You work for the entire day but by the end of it you've managed to create a monstrosity out of several sets of ribcages and deer legs that can hold a bunch of skeletons packed up for transportation inside the ribcages and you on its back. The head is adorned with a set of antlers while the two other sets are attached to a tail made out of leftover spine. Empowered by the shrine and your magic alike, it possesses rudimentary intellect.

Choice:> what will you name it?

While you were working, the rat was watching the hut. A rather tedious affair to listen to its report as it isn't smart enough to sort the irrelevat parts out, but it does inform you that the hut isn't just recently inhabited, it's inhabitant came home during early evening. It is a solitary female humanoid judging from the rat's description.

You start uncovering what village you can while the rat goes looking for something to sacrifice. Uncovering the village yields you a second basement, this one is the butcher's storage. The salted meat isn't really interesting, but a few of the deer have been salted whole save for the skin and removing the flesh from some of the other pieces yield bones that might be assembled to something useful.

The rat chances upon a hut out in the woods that looks like it has been inhabited recently!

>>26067122Use a corpse of whatever, get a vision relevant to whatever you choose to divine upon. The details of the vision are not under your control, but you will know if what you see is past, present or future (future meaning something that is possible, not something that is automaticly going to happen.)

>>26067140Ok why is it in every thread right when everything is starting to get on track someone has to go say something along the lines of "Lets go kill a sentient, that couldnt possibly give away our position!" Stay away from the being for now. this way we have as much time as we can to prepare.

>>26067263Sure we may be able to kill ONE but what if it alerts more? Then we have to fight them. What if they overrun us? We would have to abandon the greatest source of potential growth we have right now which is a MASSIVE GRAVEYARD!

We don't know how long this creature is gonna stay here and obviously its going somewhere daily so that can't be good. Besides we need information about our surrounding area. Centuries worth of information is lost to us. Besides we can lock it up in the meat basement should we want to study magic

>>26067338I'm thinking if we play this right we can actually make anyone who comes on this just think the house is haunted again. It would be the best cover until we can get a massive undead army going.

>>26067331You can sent the rat to scout it out while you study magic. Mental 1 or above means limited autonomity. it's dumb as shit, but a 1 sentence command it can understand. Neyakla is smart enough to oversee the skellies do a 1 sentence command as well, so you can potentially have them do something simple while you study.

>>26067346No you're just working with your mind, scribbling stuff in the dirt with a stick and experiments.

Options: (Your trusted mount can direct the skellies to do simple stuff on their own, and your rat can do simple stuff on its own. Total of 3 picks per turn max. Minions default to guard duty if no orders are given)> Cast a spell (specify)> scavenge> explore: N/E/S/W> study magic> research and development> write in

Objective:remove the hallowing on the rest of the graveyard> Hallowing Status: 95%

>>26067469I like the way you think.>>26067475>26067475I have an idea that blood sacrifices to our god might work. But I don't think we should mess with the being nearby, we don't have near enough minions to fight things off yet. The current idea is to just scare him off by making him think the area is being haunted.

The rat spends the day tailing the female humanoid. As it turns out, she spent the day foraging and tending to a bunch of fruit trees scattered about in the forest. It didn't encounter any signs of civilization.

Umhar has a breakthrough, researching a spell that allows him to leave his corpse behind, becoming a ghost for a day's time. While in ghost form, he can use spells and communicate, but has no physical substance. He can also make a place feel unnaturally cold and spread a thin hazey fog, though not enough to really obscure vision.

Not being made for stealth at all, Neyakla and the skeletons fail spectacularly at hunting on the rare occasions that they do see a live animal. They do, however, find a few traps with hares in them that they bring back alive, as well as a badly mauled but uneaten boar carcass.

Options: (Your trusted mount can direct the skellies to do simple stuff on their own, and your rat can do simple stuff on its own. Total of 3 picks per turn max. Minions default to guard duty if no orders are given)> Cast a spell (specify)> scavenge> explore: N/E/S/W> study magic> research and development> write in

Objective:remove the hallowing on the rest of the graveyard> Hallowing Status: 95%

>>26067767We go disguise and talk to girl in thingy, maybe taking a couple of skeletons to hang back and give us backup if things go sour. Crazy deer monster directs the rest of the skeltons to scavenge and rat goes exploring a bit.

The skeletons dig around, but no more of the village seems to be left to discover. They do uncover the buried remains of 3 dogs though.

Umhar researches further into the hazy fog of the ghost form. At the end of they day, he's managed to produce a denser version of it, as well as become capable of calling it forth when he is in the (mostly lack of) flesh.

The rat, having been given no orders to stop, continue tailing the woman. Today, she checks a bunch of snares she set, and reacts with frustration that some of them have broken.

Options: (Your trusted mount can direct the skellies to do simple stuff on their own, and your rat can do simple stuff on its own. Total of 3 picks per turn max. Minions default to guard duty if no orders are given)> Cast a spell (specify)> scavenge> explore: N/E/S/W> study magic> research and development> write in

Objective:remove the hallowing on the rest of the graveyard> Hallowing Status: 95%

>>26067930Ok we need to stop the rat, PRONTO. Also we need to remember to not hunt anymore if we don't want to tip her off. Its getting to the point were we are going to have to consider capturing her or killing her for real now. We do have a pretty good supply of corpses. I think we could safely get away with either choice.

>>26067956I still think it would be a good idea to try a little diplomacy, if we get some people to join us we could use them as spies or try and teach them the art of necrmancy if they are magically inclined.